The Reaper

Everybody wanting to speak to you, soliciting your thoughts, goading you into newsworthy errors, forcing you to discipline every word and tunnel your vision to their agenda. Dealing with people who don’t respect you, who don’t want you there yet still retaining the self-possession to treat all comers in an even-handed way, was something Brook had to applaud. The effort would have consumed him. Brook’s mind needed vast lumps of downtime, even during the day, to uncouple his thoughts from their moorings and set them adrift from the images of his past that tried, too often, to clamber aboard.

McMaster sat down and invited Brook and Noble to do the same.

‘Well, gentlemen. A busy night. DI Greatorix picked up a murder as well.’ Brook managed to exhume an interested expression. ‘Annie Sewell. Poor old dear killed in her so-called sheltered house, though I doubt it’ll knock yours off the front page.’ She nodded sadly at the horror of it all. ‘Is that for me?’ she said, indicating the sheaf of papers in Brook’s hand. He handed it to her and watched her read it quickly and without emotion.

‘Three deaths?’ she enquired. ‘I heard four.’

‘No ma’am,’ Brook returned evenly. ‘You know how these rumours start–the first impression of the neighbour.’

Brook and Noble exchanged a glance when McMaster resumed reading.

‘Windpipes severed. Time of death between eleven and midnight. I assume that’s preliminary,’ she asked with a glance at Brook. He nodded. ‘Very unpleasant,’ McMaster concluded. ‘At least from these bare facts,’ she added with perhaps a suggestion of criticism. ‘Thoughts gentlemen?’

‘The only suspect we have is the Wallis boy, Ma’am. Jason.’ Brook offered. ‘He was drunk and may have been on drugs. It’s just possible he may have gone berserk. He’s still unconscious in hospital. We’ll be seeing him later to question him and hopefully get the results of any tests.’ Brook sipped at his coffee.

‘But you don’t see him as our killer?’

‘Unlikely.’

‘Why so sure?’

‘The scene isn’t disorganised enough for that kind of chemically fuelled slaughter,’ said Brook.

‘And his clothes and hands show no visible blood stains, ma’am,’ added Noble.

‘I see.’

‘Also there’s no weapon. If Jason’s our killer we have to accept that in his drunken and/or drugged stupor he killed his family, turned on loud music to attract attention, stumbled out to hide the murder weapon and stumbled back in to munch on a leftover pizza before keeling over.’

‘Stranger things have happened on drugs.’

‘True but there are a couple of other factors that diminish the likelihood.’

‘And what are those, Damen?’ she asked.

Whenever she called him Damen, Brook knew she was trying to convey approval. He accepted it without ego. It was a compliment to his powers because it was her way of coaxing the most, and best, information from him. As she saw it, the more she knew, the better her ability to outflank any criticism from below or, more importantly, above. An in-control bad leader looks like a good leader under almost all scrutiny. Not that she was a bad leader.

‘Well, Forensics will have to confirm this, but it’s clear from the blood patterns that the family were killed where they were found. Even if we assume that Jason was in full control of his faculties, we then have to accept that he walked into the room and cut his sister’s throat where she lay, without father or mother moving a muscle to intervene. Then he did the same to his parents, in which order I don’t yet know, though I suspect it was ladies first. Again, little sign of physical struggle.’

DS Noble’s face betrayed a caveat to Brook’s theory but he had trained himself, after several painful lessons, not to lay himself open to ridicule. That applied doubly in the presence of the Chief Super.

‘Couldn’t he have overpowered his father first, taken him by surprise?’ asked McMaster.

‘The mother as well? No, we checked. Again, subject to forensic confirmation, there are no marks on any of the victim’s wrists or ankles. They weren’t tied up. There were no injuries or contusions on the parents’ skulls so he didn’t creep up and knock them unconscious.’

‘What’s the second reason?’ asked McMaster.

‘Sergeant?’ asked Brook, fixing Noble with a stare. He couldn’t let him have it too easy.

Noble hesitated but knew not to wait too long. A swift error would pass notice much easier than a long anticipated one. ‘The baby?’ he offered, trying to keep the question mark out of his response.

‘Right. The baby completes the family. Its…’ Brook looked at Noble for a prompt.

‘It’s a girl, sir. Bianca.’

‘…her presence on the scene is part of the killer’s strategy. The baby was brought from her bed as part of a logical choice, as was the decision not to kill her. If Jason had done this under the influence of narcotics or alcohol, why bring the baby down? Surely, if it’s a drunken mindless act, he would have killed his baby sister upstairs, where he found her. It doesn’t make sense. Our killer sees it differently. He wants the baby in the family portrait but chooses not to kill it. Her.’

‘Why?’

‘Perhaps he’s showing us he has the intelligence and humanity to feel mercy. God knows. But he needs the baby there to fulfil his need.’

‘What need?’

‘Maybe he’s a Barnardo’s boy, an orphan in search of a family. Whatever that is,’ Brook added, with an unexpected trace of bile that surprised even himself. ‘It’s difficult to say.’

After a suitable consoling pause, McMaster ploughed on. ‘What about writing SAVED on the wall and cutting it on the girl? What’s that all about?’

Brook looked at the wall behind her head as though he were casting around for a solution to a question he hadn’t yet considered. It didn’t do to over-egg the pudding. ‘Some kind of religious claptrap I imagine. Maybe crowing that he’s saved her soul from a life of sin and packed her off to Heaven.’

‘A God squadder,’ she nodded. ‘Why he?’ she queried.

‘The usual reasons,’ replied Brook.

‘Statistically sound, I know,’ she countered, with a more confident edge in her voice. She was on her own turf. ‘But why so sure?’ She stood and picked up a small water jug on her desk.

‘Do you want the classic profile of the serial killer?’

She turned sharply from her spider plant, spilling a little water on the floor. ‘Is that what this is?’

‘I think so. This has been planned for a long time. All that was missing for the killer were the right victims.’

‘And if it is a God squadder we’re looking for a middle-aged male,’ nodded McMaster, ‘which rules out the Wallis boy.’

‘Why middle aged?’ asked Noble before he could stop himself.

‘Jason’s too young to be appalled by the moral cesspool of society,’ said Brook. ‘That’s more a function of my age group.’

‘Are you saying that whoever did this has picked the Wallis family out at random?’ Noble asked.

‘No. Our killer has sound reasons for wanting this family dead.’

‘Well,’ said Noble, deciding to risk humiliation in the hunt for brownie points, ‘if they weren’t selected at random, surely the killer must know the family, or some members of it.’

‘I don’t think so, John. He just thinks he does.’

‘This is idle speculation,’ rejoined McMaster, deciding she’d learned all she was going to learn. ‘I’m cancelling my course in Birmingham. I’ll be briefing the press this afternoon so I’ll need your CID/57’s as soon as possible. I think DS Noble has a point. I don’t like the idea of serial killings, Damen. This isn’t London.’

‘That’s what the Yorkshire Ripper team said. One of the reasons he was free to kill for years.’